An Essay on Economics of “liberal Egalitarianism”. A Selective Combination of Rawls’, Sen’s and Kolm’s Works

Essai sur l'Économie de «l'Égalitarisme Libéral». Une Combinaison Sélective des Travaux de Rawls, Sen et Kolm

Claude Gamel

Working Papers from HAL

Abstract: In "The Idea of Justice" (2009), Sen firmly criticizes "transcendental" theories of justice, the archetype of which is to be found in Rawls' works and he suggests substituting for them a more pragmatic "comparative" approach. In "Macrojustice" (2005), Kolm defends his conception of an "endogenous social choice", which induces him to keep at a distance Rawlsian concepts, such as "original position" and "veil of ignorance", he considers as too abstract. Concerning Rawls himself, he has offered a philosophical formulation of the second principle of justice ("fair equality of opportunity" and "principle of difference") but that sole formulation remains too vague to contain precise proposals in the field of economic and social policy. In spite of real differences at a epistemological level about the meaning of their own normative ideas, Sen, Kolm and Rawls can be considered as "liberal egalitarians", but economics of this school of thought is still to be specified (1): The Rawlsian hierarchy between the principles de justice would give our essay its general framework (2), whereas Sen's "capability approach" would legitimize a more ambitious conception of "fair equality of opportunity" (3) and Kolm's distributive "ELIE transfers" would be a suitable application of the "principle of difference" (4). As a conclusion, the scope and limits of our essay are subject to a first examination (5).

Keywords: egalitarianism; liberalism; principles of justice; capabilities; macrojustice; libéralisme; principes de justice; capacités; égalitarisme (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme and nep-hpe
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01092172
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01092172/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01092172

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().